Hey all,
You’ve probably heard that one of the most important things you can do as a blogger or marketer is to build your list, right?
Did you know your list gives you ANOTHER excellent benefit besides mere sales?
You see, it all started at 3:30am this morning. Over the weekend, I had spent quite a lot of time hacking up a cleaner version of my Income Fitness Sales page.
You can see it for yourself:
- Big Huge Mile Long Humongous Copy That’s Bigger Than Ahnold’s Chin
- Elegant Shorter Copy that Takes Readers on a Tour
And during the wee hours of the morning, I was dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s and …. managed to completely hose up my WordPress installation.
EEEK!
You can read about that over at my Delightful Morning of Hell post in my Income Fitness Journal (which, btw, is free to join – you can make one yourself!) – it should be most amusing indeed. 
Anywhos! After fixing everything by sacrificing 4 cups of coffee to the gods, I asked some marketers what page they preferred. Almost to a one, it was the longer copy!
Jeepers, thought I…I know it’s believed that longer copy coverts better, but you have to ask yourself – if’s that true, why don’t traditional retail products do the same thing?
I researched the sales pages for software, websites, housewares, etc….and in just about all the instances, the sales copy was short and sweet and effective.
So….I decided to try it out meself!
And here’s where my list came in.
After finishing up everything, I polled my list and asked THEM, what do YOU prefer?
I’d say that so far, 75% prefer the shorter copy, 25% prefer the longer one (it’s only been 20 minutes since I sent out that email, so who knows…we’ll have to see tomorrow).
And the comments I received were very thoughtful indeed….it’s the stuff marketers dream to receive (valid feedback from potential customers).
Now, we’ll see what actually converts better in the long run, but right now, I am extremely grateful indeed to my wonderful readers who helped me out when I needed it the most.
Let’s now apply this to you!
If you have your own newsletter/list/etc., do NOT just send out…."Jeepers! Here’s the latest product promo I’m offering!"
Take the time to offer useful heads-up posts, links to free resources your readers can use, timely tips for them to create their own solutions and the like.
Show your quality and build the trust.
And when it comes time for you to get help above and beyond what’s considered normal…I’ll bet your readers will come through for you too. And that…..is simple irreplaceable, indeed.
Enjoy,
Barbara Ling
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when I first saw your long sales page I was totally impressed. It’s no secret that long sales pages work. It’s why you see almost every course, video series and ‘blueprint’ use them. It’s spouted in almost every sales/marketing ebook I’ve downloaded. That, and selling it for a strange figure like 97$ and using an upsell page.
I like the short one too but some silly part of me still sees the shorter version as less value than the long one even though I know the number of words it contains has got nothing to do with it!
It’s kind of formulaic but, formulas work! I think you did it really well and I can see a lot of value in the product you’re pitching. If it was mine, I’d keep the long version and feel warm and fluffy that I could produce copy as good as Fortin or Schreiter
I have seen an awful lot of internet advice courses and products over the past 5 years, hell, I’ve even written scripts and implemented rotators and list building software for some of the people that wrote them (people with over 100K each in their lists) and I’d still rather all the new “internet marketers” come to you and learn the sensible way instead of believing the hype about sending every single affiliate link you can to a list you build by any means necessary.
Like you said above, you used your list to engage with your subscribers. You got them involved in your product and didn’t bombard them with another sales link. They will learn from that.
Someone once said to me, “..you’re always teaching. Even before you sign someone up, what they see you do, they will do, so do it right from the start”
You’re doing a great job and I’m sure you’ll teach a lot of people a lot of good stuff. If they learn it off you before they can get corrupted by the ‘end justifies the means’ crowd then you might make the internets a cleaner place.
Andy Bailey´s last blog ..Update across the board for Blogger CommentLuv
There is no reason for guessing when you have some great people that you can ask and that would want to tell you how they want things. It is a shame that so many people are not using that free gift.
/Mikael
Mikael @ Retire Rich´s last blog ..Should a Child Spend The Whole Dollar?
Very true! My readers rocks.
Hey Andy,
Thanks so much for your long and thoughtful post!!
I’m soooooo jaded online sometimes when it comes to marketing – I abhor the hype-filled and froth-ensuing pages that just simply “sell the dream”.
But amazingly it does seem that while some folks are saying, yes, the short copy is better/more professional…just about all of the sales have come from the Long Copy of the page!
Go figure. But! All of that work creating the short copy is not in vain – I taught myself how to hack up a one column wordpress template to give me the flexibility of future product promotions (categories/dates/structure) so my long-term plan (a whole suite of services) can be implemented far more easily.
Thank you so much for your kind words as well; I am rather humbled by them. You’re an acknowledged master of the Internet; I very much appreciate your comments.
Best wishes,
Barbara
Very good post. Everything I have read says long copy is the way to go. It seems though video is really the best way now or does that depend on who you are. For me you need something to hook me in something free that is of value. I get lost with long copy. Unless of course it has a lot of reviews and success stories.
Jared P Little´s last blog ..Best WordPress Design 2009
Yep, I hear you. The things we learn!
Thanks!